I believe that your mattress grows in direct proportion to the length of your relationship.

When The Husband and I were first living in glorious sin, we had a twin bed. A twin. I can’t even fathom this now. Somehow we crammed his viking self and my own not-inconsiderable proportions onto a mattress meant for one person to sleep uncomfortably. And we loved it. It was enforced snuggling, and tee-hee! we were so ga-ga over each other that we thought it was adorable. Or at least, I did. If he disagreed, he was wise enough to keep mum.

Then as our relationship started rounding the one-year mark, we upgraded to a full-size mattress. Because snuggling is great, but we were both working and we were just so busy (HA! I laugh at our former unwed childless selves!) that sometimes we needed a little less cuddle and a little more sleep.

Then we got married. And got a queen-size mattress. The idea was to give us both more room to spread out, but mostly it gave The Husband room to spread out and me enough room to cling to the edge. At the time, we lived in an apartment, and the bed took up almost the entire bedroom. Once we had The Boy, there was a crib in there, too, and we had to cleverly arrange thngs to give ourselves a tiny walking path through the room. But arrange things we did, because all that bed acreage was like heaven.

Now we have a house with a gigantic master bedroom. Our little queen-sized mattress is like a tiny island in a sea of carpet, a sea which we find all too easy to fill with the clutter of laundry that manages to get washed and folded, but never quite makes it to closets and drawers. We’ve been married almost five years. Our two kids sometimes end up cuddled in bed with us. I cannot begin to tell you how crowded that is. Happy, but crowded.

The Husband doesn’t know it yet, but we’re upgrading to a King. Soon.

To recap:

New relationship: twin bed: aw, cuddles!
One year later: full size bed: cuddle, then go away so I can sleep
Two years later: queen size bed: sleep comfortably, occasionally meet in the middle for this “cuddle” thing
Five+ years and married: king size bed: omg don’t touch me, I’m sleeping! send a message over, by paper airplane or something, and we can negotiate.

Don’t feel bad for The Husband. Bigger bed does not mean a cessation of cuddling. That’s what the shower is for.